A huge surge in foreign tourists coming to Thailand for its high standard of medical services has made the country's private healthcare revenue climb with more than 20% over the last year, boosting Thailand's image to become Asia's medical hub.

The CEO of Bangkok General Hospital, Doctor Phongsak Wittayakorn, said that Thailand's revenue from private healthcare and medical services rose to 80 billion Thai Baht (1US$ = 39 TBH) last year, a rise of 20% from the previous year, with a forecast of a further 12% growth for the coming year.

This rapid expansion is attributed to the huge number of foreign tourists who are attracted to the high International quality of Medical care and affordable healthcare offered by the private International hospitals in Thailand. Average costs for ultra modern medical services in Thailand is 8-times cheaper than in the United States and 4-times cheaper than in Singapore.

Willing to capitalize on these advantages, the Thai government and the Tourist Authority of Thailand is promoting health tourism to the country as Thailand is getting the image as the high class medical hub in Asia.

However, the huge earnings of the private medical care in Thailand has drawn critics from the public medical sector, who say that the emphasis of high standard medical care for foreign tourists is leading to dual standards within the Thai healthcare system and pulling away doctors from the public sector to the private sector.

The Bangkok General Hospital group estimates that its revenue will grow by 30% this year due to large investments in new state-of-the-art services aimed at foreign health tourists. Their innovations include a new 500-million Thai Baht (1US$ = 39 TBH) Bangkok Heart Hospital, which is the most advanced heart disease hospital within the whole of South-East Asia, using the latest equipments such as a Da Vinci robot to perform heart surgery.